The champagne is a sparkling wine from the region of Champagne (France), which is very popular in the world. So much so, that many countries have made ​​efforts to get similar wines to market and deal with the French competition.

There are traces of it from the Tertiary had vineyards in the Champagne region and is used for wine, since then, until the arrival of the Celts, continued with this tradition, but from the year 57 BC, when Julius Caesar invades Gaul and the Romans settled in this region, settling in her noble and starting with the traditional culture of the vine. It then comes the champagne.

In the year 496, the Franks take over this area and is declared king Clovis in Gaul and during the next two centuries there is a boom for the cultivation of around abbeys (the most notable is the Hautvillers). Great fairs held in the region and this, combined with ease of transport by rivers and Roman roads, gives a big boost to the wines of Champagne competing with those of Burgundy.

Born Pierre Perignon in 1638, became a Benedictine and was manager of the abbey of Hautvillers available to large plantations of vines. Perignon noted that the wine after the winter, tended to drop burbrjas and wanted to bottle with them, so they thought that the second fermentation was carried out inside the bottle. But the problem was how close the bottle, until one day he found a Spanish pilgrims who closed their bottles with cork and decided to do the same with its wines, also with a rope securing them so that the second fermentation was possible within the bottle.

It also occurred to him to mix grapes from different areas, improving the champagne and set rules for processing, such as not using more than pinot noir grapes, prune the vines to reach no more than 90 cm. high, gathering only the grapes that were whole and when it was cold, wet cloth put on the clusters that were the sun to keep them fresh, not allowing any type of maceration to change the taste of wine, several pressed to separate the fast and smooth each pressed juice.

This is how Perignon significantly improve the existing method champanoise, although often it is attributed to his discovery.

Then the champagne came into vogue in the French court and was a great sign of elegance and refinement. There were still several unresolved problems, such as breaks for gas bottles. Soon be remedied by fixing the amount of sugar added to the second fermentation in the bottle. Another major problem was the removal of solid waste bottles that cloud the wine. This was solved by drilling Clicquot’s widow a few tables and put the bottles upside down, stirring and making the sediment deposited in the cap, after removing the cork and put a new one.

That’s when the champagne and was ready to come to us as we know it today.

Tags: Champagne, Champagne region, culture, History, roman roads, traditional, Vineyards

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